The Fall and Rise of Nicola Murray
by nottonyharrison
Summary: One second you're Nicola Murray. The next, you're Nicola Effing Murray. Until one day you're neither. You're nobody. You're out on the street in a broken pair of heels and mascara streaming down your cheeks wondering how to become someone again.
1. Prologue

Politics and sexuality are inherently similar. That is to say, politics is a spectrum in which you just have to kind of say _fuck it_ and toss yourself in with one of the most visible orientations or risk being relegated to eternal obscurity. If you' don't, and you somehow manage to get noticed, you'll spend the rest of your service being told to _pick a side already_ , or that you're _just greedy and want the best of both worlds._

Sometimes you end up in bed with someone screaming _what the fuck_ at the top of your lungs even though you don't really want to stop, or maybe it's too late to get off the train and you spend the rest of your life feeling violated. Sometimes you spend years trying to get someone into bed and then find out they're a terrible fuck.

You should know everything immediately. To say the right words, and present yourself the right way. To be all knowing without being given any direction or being taught anything other than _this thing goes here_ , and _always protect yourself._ You silently scream for someone to show you the subtleties, but don't want to admit you have no idea what the hell you're doing - or even if you really want to be doing it at all.

One second you're happily sipping away at the bar on your first wine, eyeing up the reasonably attractive man two stools down, and the next you're standing in the middle of a dungeon on your hands and knees, shackled and conflicted about how right it all feels.

One second you're Nicola Murray. The next, you're Nicola Fucking Murray.

Until one day you're neither. You're nobody. You're out on the street in a broken pair of heels and mascara streaming down your cheeks wondering how to become _someone_ again.


	2. Blobfish

_**Notorious Downing Street Spin Doctor Arrested**_

 _The man believed to have controlled much of of former Prime Minister Tom Davis' administration has tuned himself into police today in a farcical display of cat and mouse with the British media. The arrest follows allegations of perjury and leaking of confidential medical records during a long term sit-in protest by Douglas Tickel, a nurse who recently committed suicide._

 _Malcolm Tucker, 52, was arrested at Hackney Police Station this afternoon, following the final day of an Inquiry investigating the circumstances of Mr. Tickel's death._

 _Following the defeat of the Labour government during the 2010 election, Mr Tucker's position as Senior Communications Officer for the Opposition has been fraught with controversy, including allegations he orchestrated the disparagement and removal of the Rt. Hon. Nicola Murray as Leader._

 _Mr. Tucker has been released on bail pending investigation. Police have yet to comment, but in a statement issued by his lawyer, Mr Tucker resigned his post of Senior Communications Officer for the Labour party, but denying all allegations. No formal comment was made by Mr. Tucker himself._

"He's kind of sexy isn't he?"

Nicola looks up from her tablet and across to her eldest daughter Katie, who's engrossed in the front page of The Guardian. Katie takes a sip of her coffee and looks up at her mother.

"You know, Tucker."

Nicola stares across the table and grimaces. "Jesus shitting Christ, Katie. How strong is the weed at that arts college of yours?"

"What, you don't think so?"

Nicola flicks her eyes back to the cat video on the screen and taps it to play. "Do you usually find yourself attracted to rabid velociraptors, or is this a one-off thing?"

Katie takes another drink, and puts the paper down. "I'm just saying mum... you're not getting any younger."

"I'd rather give a blowjob to a fucking blobfish than ever lay eyes on that cannibalistic piece of shit again."

"I don't think blobfish have penises."

Nicola glares across the table for a moment before going back to the video. It's a cat licking a banana and wearing a monkey suit. It's _almost_ as bizarre as her last three years in politics. "You're right, I'm pretty sure they just rub themselves on a bunch of other blobs and hope for the best. Let me be more factually correct and say I'd rather perform cunnilingus on a female blobfish than lay eyes on that _human flesh eating smear of excrement_ ever again."

"Well, personally I think he did you a favour." Katie folds the paper and sets it down on the table primly. Malcolm Tucker's accusatory face stares up at Nicola and she grimaces.

"Yes, well that didn't turn out so well for him, did it?" Nicola scrapes her chair back and picks up the cafetière. "Another? Or are you heading off to a class taught by some eighty-seven year old professor you have designs on?"

"He's eighty- _four_ , and really mum. I'm already into the prototype stage, it's too late to pull the funding now."

Nicola lets out an aborted chuckle and turns on the tap to rinse out the coffee pot. She can hear Katie getting her things together and a moment later there are warm lips on her neck and arms around her waist.

"I love you, mum. And I love having you around in the mornings to talk shit at."

"I love you too, sweetheart. Now go to school and get to work on that prototype before the cash cow runs out of money."

"Oh woe is me Nicola Murray _I only earn seventy-five thousand quid a year whatever shall I do_?" Katie gives her a final squeeze and swans out the door, leaving a trail whimsy and Red Door Velvet in her wake. Nicola smiles for a moment before looking back down at the sink and clutching the counter. The amount the divorce is costing her, she'll be lucky to have seventy-five pence to rub together at the end of it.

…

Being on the backbench again has opened her eyes to a world she'd forgotten about. Yes, the more humdrum aspects of being an MP – the local constituency, the endless committees she's been included in as a sign of 'party unity' – are part of it, but the real revelation is what the cheap seats reveal of your colleagues.

The first sitting of the House of Commons following her leadership resignation, she spotted at least three members picking their noses and pretending to swipe on a handkerchief before putting their fingers suspiciously close to their mouths. Four more were constantly itching their balls, and a fifth her vag. One display in the row in front of her was particularly gruesome, with two members fondling each other's legs in a way that was not at all appropriate for married men, and ended in a whispered goodbye and a suck of the earlobe.

In all honesty, she was really just annoyed at the reminder of her non existent sex life. Too many years of worrying about how ending her own loveless marriage would affect her career and where did it get her? An unwelcome image of Malcolm Tucker popped into her mind, and she shuddered. "Oh, yuck."

"Sorry, did you say something, Nicola?" It's Rebecca Holden, MP for Bassetlaw who is seated next to her.

"Oh, nothing, just visualising blobfish reproduction, the usual."

Rebecca eyes her sideways and begins shuffling off towards the entrance doors. Nicola pinches her nose and follows behind, feeling every bit the political leper. One of the bogey eaters brushes past her and his hand brushes hers. She reaches into her bag and grabs the Purell.

"Good to see you're still disgusted with the masses, Nicola." Nicola drops the bottle in surprise at Ben Swain's smarmy voice booming from behind her. She reaches down to pick it up before someone slips on it, but he doesn't miss a beat, "How's backbench life treating you, anyway? Got any good head up in the dark and dusty reaches of the chamber recently?"

"Oh, fuck off Ben." She squirts some sanitiser into her hand and tosses the bottle back in her purse before continuing down the corridor.

"I was wondering if you've heard the _big news_."

She rolls her eyes and doesn't bother turning around. "I heard the implied capitalisation in that phrase, and as I'm sure you're aware, I am no longer included in any Big News announcements, unless they directly and implicitly affect the constituency of Ealing North. Actually, sometimes not even then, so you can take your fucking carrot and dangle over someone else mister B. sodding U.G."

"B.U.G.?"

"Big Ugly Giant. Or Big Unfriendly Giant... Either works." Nicola's still making a path towards the stairs, but she can still feel Ben in all his self inflated, callow glory hot on her heels. "Ben, if you're going to follow me all the way to the loo then I'm afraid you're going to have to either grow a pair of ovaries, or stop blinking and sweating every time you hear the word _tampon_."

Ben grabs her arm and she swings around, eyes of fire. "Word on the street is that He Who Must Not Be Named has struck a deal... no jail time."

"Okay, I'll bite." She crosses her arms and huffs a little. "It's been less than a fortnight, so I don't really see how that's even a _rumour_ yet, and why are you telling _me_?"

Ben's face looks sympathetic, but his eyes shine in barely contained glee. He shuffles a little closer to her until he's uncomfortably near. She can feel the moisture emanating from his forehead.

"Well... word around Whitehall is that he's implicated _someone_ exchange for an ankle monitor and a packet of Jaffa Cakes."

"Who, _Ollie?_ " She hitches her purse higher on her shoulder and turns to leave. "I'm sorry, Ben, but I really don't give a shit about Ollie sodding Reeder and his disgusting haircut."

"That's not the name I heard." The words give her pause, and she hesitates. "I might hate you, Nicola, but considering you've already hit rock bottom, I really don't see how there's any further for you to fall."


	3. Bluetooth

_WTF?!_

 **-Nicola Murray 8.15pm**

 _?_

 **-Helen Hatley 8.16pm**

 _Why am I hearing about my impending arrest in the corridors of parliament?_

 **-Nicola Murray 8.18pm**

 _What arrest? You haven't done anything illegal (that I know of, I mean I suppose you have SOME secrets...?)_

 **-Helen Hatley 8.19pm**

 _According to BS I've been thrown under a shitting bus by Malcolm and should just go buy a pair of handcuffs and a ballgag from a sex shop now to save myself the public humiliation_

- **Nicola Murray 8.20pm**

 _I am so confused_

- **Helen Hatley 8.20pm**

 _You were the only one who didn't implicate him?_

 _ **-**_ **Helen Hatley 8.21pm**

 _I'm calling u hng on_

 _ **-**_ **Helen Hatley 8.21pm**

"Can you just... sorry I just need to pair my phone to the bluetooth... oh _fuck why is this so... Jesus."_ Nicola hits the icon for speaker and sits the phone on the dashboard.

" _You just need to hit the bu-"_

"I know how to pair a phone to a car, Helen, I just can't get the damn phone to sit in the cradle without it trying to smash itself on the dash"

" _Why don't you just sit it in the centre console then?"_

" _Speed bump,_ Helen. that is why because that speed bump makes it rattle and that annoys the ever loving shit out of me. Oh, fuck it." Nicola turns on the bluetooth, dumps the phone into the small slot behind the gear lever of the Audi, starts the car, and is assaulted by a piercing ringing through the car's speakers, and the the fake sounding American accent of the car's operating system proclaiming Helen is on the line. _"FUCK."_

She drops her head to the steering wheel, and the car gives out a short toot. The ringing continues, and Nicola roughly twists the volume knob to the far left and glances through the small gap beneath her arm at the phone, which is vibrating gently against the hard plastic of the console. With her right thumb, she presses the button to answer the call without moving her head from its pathetic, defeated position. "Hnng."

" _Please tell me you didn't crash the car while trying to turn on your bluetooth."_

Nicola just grunts and bashes the steering wheel a few times with the palms of her hands.

" _Are you having a seizure? Do you need me to call an ambulance... or an exorcist?"_

"Just call the people who sell those anvils that say ACME on the side and get them to drop one on my roof will you?" She lifts her head wearily and stares out of the windscreen. The hulking figure of Ben Swain lumbers into the periphery of her vision and and walks towards his car like an horrific stuffed bear in an ill fitting suit. "Fuck Ben Swain. _Fuck him. Fuck him, Helen_."

" _Well I'm sure if you asked he wouldn't say no."_

"This is not a joke! That overgrown fat hyena is just... look at him. _Look at him_. He's just swanning around like the cat who ate the fucking canary and _I'm the canary, Helen. ME"_

" _Look, I'm sure-"_

"No. No I'm sure. I need you to find out _right now_ what the hell is going on and how exactly Malcolm has implicated me in his mess, because I'm sure as shit not letting him fabricate some ridiculously far-fetched story about how I was behind the records leak. I'm especially not going to prison just so he can sit around his nice comfortable flat for eighteen months eating Jaffa Cakes and drinking Orange fizz from his Soda Stream." Nicola reaches into her purse and clutches her hand around the small bottle at the bottom, but doesn't remove it from the bag.

" _Do you have your rescue remedy?"_

"I do not need my rescue remedy, I am perfectly fucking _fine_." She lets go of the bottle, and tosses the bag into the foot well of the passenger seat. Flinging the car into reverse, she pulls out of the park a little too vigorously, and narrowly misses overshooting and hitting the rear of an Aston Martin parked on the opposite side of the row. Helen is talking about reaching out to some contacts now, and Nicola makes some grunts and affirmative noises as she heads to the exit. She hits the speed bump at fifteen miles per hour and swears loudly. The phone leaps out of its resting place falls into the foot well, and wedges itself under the accelerator. Her foot slams on the brake, and the force nearly slams her into the steering wheel. In her angry fluster she'd forgotten to put on her safety belt.

" _Nicola? Nicola, are you okay?"_

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Give me a sec." She grabs the phone from the floor, clips it into the hands free cradle, and snaps her safety belt into place. After a deep breath, she takes her foot off the brake, turns into the late evening traffic, and makes a decision.

"Helen?"

" _Nicola."_

"If I don't call you back in two hours, send an ambulance to Glenhurst Ave."

" _Nicola don't."_

Nicola steels her eyes and turns left onto Parliament Square. "Oh, I am."

…

She has to park a five minute walk from the house, but she has a pair of trainers in the boot of the car, and it's a pleasant stroll. It's not until the white and brick facade of the Edwardian terrace come into view that she starts to have second thoughts about her impulsive and really rather badly thought out visit.

"Fucking hell Murray what are you doing?" She bites down on the flesh of her thumb, and spins on her heel, almost walking back in the direction she came before closing her eyes, clenching her fists, and storming back towards the front door of the posh but still nondescript house. The gate squeaks loudly as she swings it open, and a single unruly branch from the shrub to the left scratches her arm, the only piece out of place in an otherwise immaculate front garden. She sees a very faint movement behind one of the downstairs windows, and marches up to the door.

 _Knock knock knock._

Nothing.

 _BANG BANG BANG._

Still nothing.

"Malcolm Tucker, I know you're in there."

Silence..

"I swear, Malcolm, I will... call someone to break this door down if you don't get your traitorous, duplicitous, backstabbing skinny bitch arse out here now so help me god." Nicola bangs one more time on the door for emphasis, and crosses her arms over her chest. There's movement in one of the neighbouring homes, but she keeps her eyes fixed firmly on the door in front of her. "I can keep shouting synonyms if you like... f _ickle...deceitful..."_ She readjusts her feet on the porch, and shifts her hands to her hips. Looking up at the sky, she continues. " _disloyal... perfid-"_

The door swings open and the grey face of Malcolm Tucker stares out at her, eyes blazing.

"Do _not_ ever call me fucking _skinny._ "


	4. Yellow

There has always been a strange tension between Nicola and Malcolm. One that isn't purely about the verbal abuse, or the knife edge their professional relationship balanced on for so many years. It isn't sexual either, just something that exists and keeps them from being entirely comfortable around one another. Nicola likens it to kimchi – there's something about it that isn't quite right, but you can't stop putting it in your mouth even though you keep wondering if you're eating something a bit rotten.

In her mind, Malcolm is definitely something a bit rotten. Or perhaps not rotten, just acidic and bitter, covered in a shell of obscenity... a hint underlying indecency that pushes its way to the surface when you take a moment of pause before swallowing.

Her throat feels hollow now though. Months without his shrewd gaze and venomous tongue left her at a loss for words, and she drops her eyes to her shoes. The toes are a little worn from where she has a habit of kicking the legs of her desk, and there's a smear of black grease on one of them from where she slipped getting out of a JCB during one of her last formal engagements as the Labour leader.

There's a quiet sound of a door closing, and it takes Nicola a few moments to realise Malcolm has shut the door in her face. She turns slowly, sits down on the cold concrete of the step, and puts her head in her hands.

"Shit."

She pulls out her phone from her coat pocket, and opens the last message from Helen. Her thumb hovers over the screen, but she doesn't know what to say.

There's the sharp noise of ice knocking against glass directly in front of her, and she twitches violently in surprise. "Jesus fucking..." The glass is hanging in front of her forehead, and she glances up at where the arm it's attached to disappears over her fringe.

She puts her phone down on the step, takes the glass and drinks. Malcolm sits next to her. His arm is pressed lightly against her side, and she shuffles across a little to create some space between them. Malcolm takes a sip from his own glass, and stares blankly out toward the street.

"Cheers to us. A failure and a fucking felon."

"Don't bother. _I know._ "

Malcolm doesn't respond. Just twirls the whiskey around in his glass and holds it up to the light of a street lamp.

"I _know,_ Malcolm." He raises an eyebrow and looks at her. She glares at him and tries to swallow the remainder of her drink in by tossing her head back. The ice tries to tip out of the glass, and she quickly drops her head. "I know you've made some kind of unholy deal to stay out of prison, and I'm the one who's going to be fucking pissing in a stainless steel bowl in full view of a three hundred pound lesbian."

"Oh come on, Nicola. Once your divorce is done you'll be lucky to get a flatmate with such a pedigree. Beggars shouldn't presume to be fucking choosers."

"Fuck you." She puts her glass down on the step below her bum, and stands. " _Fuck_ you, fuck your fucking thousand pound an hour lawyer," she turns around and points a finger at him. "Fuck your fucking everything you fucking _fucker_."

Malcolm lazily takes another slug of whiskey. "Now there's the fire you were missing while you were leader."

She narrows her eyes.

"You told me you wanted it. You were either lying or fucking stupid, and I know you're not an idiot, Nicola. Despite the completely retarded appearance."

"Fuck you, Malcolm."

"I'm sorry, I misspoke. That was a disservice to the intellectually disabled."

She picks up a stone from the path, and throws it at him. It misses him narrowly, and hits the wood of the door.

He half turns and points at the door. "I just had that repainted last week. Do you not like the yellow?"

"I genuinely hope, Malcolm, that you trip on your ankle monitor, fall down the stairs, and nobody thinks to check on you for a couple of weeks." She points a finger at him and narrows her eyes. "I really, truly, emphatically wish this upon you, and if I were a Harry Potter character right now, I would probably be using one of the unforgivable curses. But... seeing as I'm not a Harry Potter character, I'm just going to be content in my knowledge that you are going to die alone and miserable, with nothing for company but your fucking satsumas and yellow sodding front door, which you can rest assured, I will not darken again."

Nicola turn and strides down the path, the pea metal crunching beneath her feet. She half expects a reply from him, but isn't surprised when she makes it through the gate without a word. She hears the clink of a glass on glass, and the sound of the door opening and closing is over by the time she's at the next gate.

She's never expected getting the last word against Malcolm Tucker would be so dissatisfying.


	5. Phone

"Did you get my text?"

Nicola looks up from her book as Katie barges through the door of the living room and drops her bag on the nearest chair.

"No, I haven't checked my phone for a couple of hours."

"Are the brats home?"

Nicola tosses her book down on the coffee table and turns around to face her daughter. "I really wish you wouldn't call your siblings that, you were their age not so long ago, you know." Katie pokes her tongue out. Nicola feels a little guilty about her own attitude towards her three youngest. "They're at your father's. Nanny and Granddad are visiting this weekend."

"Oh, ugh. I forgot about that." She flops down on the couch and snatches the book from Nicola's hand.

"You should really go and visit tomorrow," Nicola says, not really meaning it.

"I guess... what is this trash you're reading? Oh, Mum really?"

"What? They're fun."

Katie hands the twentieth Stephanie Plum novel back to her mother and leans back against the sofa. She sighs lightly, and tips over a bit to snuggle into Nicola's side. "How was your day?"

"Total shit." Nicola wraps her arm around Katie's shoulders and gives her a squeeze. "When did you text me?"

"About an hour ago." Katie pulls her phone from her back pocket, opens her outgoing messages, and holds the phone up to Nicola. "It wasn't anything life or death. Don't worry I wasn't being attacked at the tube station or anything."

Nicola leans her head back a little and pushes her glasses down her nose. "What do you mean you saw me on Instagram?"

Katie turns the phone back to her and taps at the screen a few times. She then turns it back around, and Nicola groans. "Can you read the caption, mum? It says-"

"I can read the bloody caption, Katie." She snatches the phone out of her daughter's hand and glares at the screen. _Former Labour leader still taking 'advice' from the Demon Spin-Doctor of Downing St? #NicolaMurray #MalcolmTucker #IShipIt_ The picture was taken at the one moment they had been looking at one another, right before she thrown her tantrum. Nicola grudgingly admits to herself it would be easy to mistake her enraged expression for intense sexual tension. "Who took this?"

Katie shrugs. "I don't know, I just track your tag."

"Jesus, why on earth would you want to do that?"

"I like to know what people are saying about you, so I can prepare myself with a rebuttal for when some idiot invariably says it out loud... instead of keeping it to the relative obscurity of social media." Katie burrows deeper into her mother's side, while Nicola continues to study the picture – the bemused expression on Malcolm, her heated glare, her phone on the step beside her.

"Oh no. No. Nononononono."

"What?"

Nicola closes her eyes, removes her glasses, and rubs her forehead with the back of the hand holding the phone. "Well that explains why I didn't hear your text."

She tosses the phone on the coffee table, pushes Katie away, and stands.

"Where are you off to then?"

Nicola grabs her keys from her handbag, and puts on a long trench from the closet nearest the door.

"I'll be back in an hour or so." She leaves the living room in a fluster.

"Mum... It's eleven at night," Katie calls after her. Nicola slams the front door and hurries to her car, palming her keys in her pocket as she strides out into the night.

...

"Seeing as my phone isn't sitting on your doorstep, I'm assuming you have it inside somewhere?"

He gestures to a console against the wall of the foyer. Her phone is sitting next to a vase of lilies.

"Thanks." She hesitates, leans towards the table, but doesn't step through the door.

"For fuck's sake." He steps across the hallway and snatches the phone up, motions to hand it to her, but then snaps his arm away at the last minute. "Look... why don't you come in for a drink?"

Nicola narrows her eyes and holds her hand out. "I'll just take my phone, thanks."

"You're acting like I'm asking you in for a bit of mild cannibalism and some kinky bondage, just come the fuck in and sit your lumpy arse down would you?" He gestures towards the living room, and she tugs her coat around herself a little tighter before taking a tentative step across the threshold. She looks at him as she walks past him with tentative steps. He whirls his arm impatiently, and slams the door shut behind her. "Hang your coat on one of the hooks."

"I'll keep it on, thanks."

He takes a short breath and presses his lips together, before pointing at the sofa. "Sit."

"I'm not a fucking dog, Malcolm. You give me commands and then get all bent out of shape when I piss on your carpet."

" _Are_ you going to piss on my carpet?" He heads for the kitchen and opens a couple of cupboards. "Because if you are I would very much like it if you waited until I wasn't in the room. I'd really rather not be subjected to your dried up, desperate excuse for a snatch."

Nicola takes an angry breath and lets it out slowly. Malcolm continues rattling around in the kitchen, grabbing glasses and a couple of bottles of wine. She's still standing in the middle of the room when he puts the bottles and glasses down on the coffee table, and flops down on one of the sofas, sprawling across the corner and gesturing to the opposite chair. "Red, or white?"

"I really shouldn't be here."

He opens the red. "Did you see twitter?"

She runs a hand through her hair. "It's on fucking _twitter_ now?"

"Sweetheart, it was all over the internet within ten minutes. The public love the aftermath of a good hard clusterfuck."

Nicola finally takes a seat and pours herself a very large drink, takes three gulps, and sets the glass back down on the table. "Yeah, well I'd rather you didn't keep fucking me over in every dissatisfying way you can dream up in your malicious think-tank you call a brain."

"Are you suggesting I _engineered_ this in some way, just to screw you over?" His expression is incredulous, but Nicola has seen the same look too many times.

"There is no suggestion involved here, Malcolm. You're so vindictive you just couldn't handle me continuing as a sitting MP, could you?" She leans forward and glares at him, to his credit, his face does hold an expression of vague contrition, although it could also be an attempt at disguising smug. She stands up suddenly, and skirts around the table, leaning over until her nose is less than an inch from his, and her spittle flecks his cheeks at every _fuck_ that follows. "Well, _well fucking done_. You put the final fucking nail in the decomposing coffin. Thanks so fucking much, you fucking fucker."

His eyes have drifted down to her lips, and she freezes. "Fucking fucker twice in a night... I have to say, Nicola, your insult cache could really use some work."

"Oh, _blow me_."

His eyes snap back to hers. "Is that an invitation?"

When she thought back on it later that night, the moment those words fell from his mouth was the moment her ability to see reason decided it was time for a coffee break. Her eyes locked with his, and despite her knowledge that the sliver of vulnerability she could see was entirely fabricated to manipulate her, something inside her softened, and her heart fluttered in her chest.

He's draped so languidly over the sofa, that she's leaning at a precarious angle, one hand braced on the arm of the furniture, the other pressed into the cushion near his head. It doesn't take much for him to pull her down by the collar of her coat, and press his lips to hers.


End file.
